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WASHINGTON - The illegal club drug Ecstasy can trigger euphoria among the dance club set, but can it ease the debilitating anxiety that cancer patients feel as they face their final days?

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) has approved a pilot study looking at whether the recreational hallucinogen can help terminally ill patients lessen their fears, quell thoughts of suicide and make it easier for them to deal with loved ones.

"End of life issues are very important and are getting more and more attention, and yet there are very few options for patients who are facing death," Dr. John Halpern, the Harvard research psychiatrist in charge of the study, said Monday.

The small, four-month study is expected to begin early next spring. It will test the drug's effects on 12 cancer patients from the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in the Boston area. The research is being sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that plans to raise $250,000 to fund it.

MAPS, on its web site, touted the study's approval, saying "the longest day of winter has passed, and maybe so has the decades-long era of resistance to psychedelic research."

The FDA (news - web sites) would not comment, but this will be the second FDA-approved study using Ecstasy this year. South Carolina researchers are studying the effects of Ecstasy on 20 patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

Ecstasy, known scientifically as MDMA for methylenedioxymethamphetamine, is a chemical cousin of methamphetamine and typically induces feelings of euphoria, increased energy and sexual arousal. But it also suppresses appetite, thirst and the need to sleep, and in high doses can sharply increase body temperature, leading to kidney and heart failure, and death.

It peaked in 2001 as a trendy recreational drug used by youth at gatherings called "raves" and dance clubs.

Halpern, who has done other research on the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, said that some, when used properly, can have medical benefits. He said that unlike LSD, Ecstasy is "ego-friendly," and unlike some pain medications it does not oversedate people and make them foggy and unsteady.

Instead, he said, it can reduce stress and increase empathy. There are anecdotal reports, he said, of people dying of cancer who take Ecstasy and they are able to talk to their family and friends about death and other subjects they couldn't broach before.

"I'm hoping that we can find something that can be of use for people in their remaining days of life," he said. If there are no significant problems, he said broader studies would follow this one.

In addition to FDA approval, the study has also received review board authorization from the Lahey Clinic and Harvard Medical School (news - web sites)'s psychiatric facility, McLean Hospital. Halpern is awaiting a license from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

It's been more than 40 years since Harvard has been the site of psychedelic drug research ? including the infamous LSD studies of Timothy Leary in 1963 and the Good Friday Experiment in 1965, done by Leary's student Walter Pahnke, studying the effects of psilocybin mushrooms on religious people.

But "this is not about trying to create some sensationalistic storm," Halpern said. "This is about trying to help these patients in a meaningful way."

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Patients who suffer severe chronic pain and are no longer helped by morphine will soon have a new option.The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first in a new class of drugs that blocks the nerve channels responsible for transmitting pain signals. It will be marketed as Prialt and should be available by the end of January. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/P...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

Quote:blinkidiot said:It should be noted that Halpern is (one of the men) known in this community as the one who robbed us of "Leonard Pickard's acid-from-a-silo", and fed the DEA information about the whole thing

Pickard was at risk because he was playing both sides, and skinner was a piece of human waste. I can't believe that people like that actually get near (a) source of LSD. If I saw that creep coming, I'd head for the hills or murder him before he could do the same to me.

Quote:San Francisco Chronicle said:When officers shined a black light around the lab, the surfaces glowed eerily with LSD dust. While taking the lab apart, one agent became so heavily dosed he collapsed in convulsions.

Quote:Learyfan said:Halpern was obviously giving the DEA information. That is unforgiveable. How ever much he told them was too much.

Good eyes blink!

Pickard was the one working with the DEA for so long against the illegal import of opiates. Probably so the ET would keep coming in. Is that forgivable?

"...Pickard was charged with making LSD, pleaded guilty and served about five years. Later, officials revealed that Pickard "had been an informant" for state and federal drug agents.

Pickard said he helped police investigate people supplying equipment to make methamphetamine, which like heroin and cocaine is addictive. He seemed to see psychedelic drugs as beneficial, but eyed addictive drugs as a blight: "I agree with (hippie leader) Wavy Gravy. There's blood on heroin and cocaine."..."

Pickard had been working with the DEA for years according to them. Skinner was the real scum like Blinkidiot said up there. Halpern was trying to save his ass and best I can tell, he never said anything to the DEA till after the shit hit the fan (Skinner snitched...)I don't want to defend him but the research he's doing now with MAPS could mean alot of good things to our future!